


You Got the Silver

by tikistitch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Fallen Castiel, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-03 22:53:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tikistitch/pseuds/tikistitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Cas is still adjusting to a mojo-less existence Dean decides it would be a cool idea to go hunting things: things with sharp, pointy teeth.  But then an encounter with some mischievous pagan gods sends them on an important quest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You Got the Silver

**Title:** You Got the Silver  
 **Fandom:** Supernatural  
 **Author:** tikific  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Dean, Fallen!Castiel  
 **Warnings:** Cursing.  
 **Word Count:** 2,000  
 **Summary:** While Cas is still adjusting to a mojo-less existence Dean decides it would be a cool idea to go hunting things. Things with sharp, pointy teeth.  
 **Notes:** I’m writing a longer fic and got stuck, so I hammered this one out pretty quickly, partly to get un-stuck. 

 

“Cas.”

“Dean.” Cas had a nylon athletic bag open between them on the wide front seat and was slowly and methodically checking each one of the weapons contained within.

“Dude, you can’t spend eight hours at the damn gun range.”

“I need to increase my facility with firearms, Dean.”

“Eight hours? Come on, Cas. People don’t do that.”

“Maybe not. But as you are constantly reminding me, I’m not really a human, am I, Dean?”

That stung. “Look, okay, you’re not, but you need to stop the training crap sometimes and do human things, right? Like sleep. Or eat. Did you have lunch? Or breakfast?”

“I can’t remember,” Cas muttered into a 9 mm.

“How can anyone space out about not eating all day?”

Cas remained silent, but when Dean glanced over, his eyes flashed. “Not. Human.” He snapped the clip back into the Beretta, checked the safety, and placed it back in the bag.

“It won’t help to kill yourself. You wanna faint again? Like that job two weeks ago?”

“I didn’t faint!”

“What was it then?”

“I may have briefly … lost consciousness.”

“Cas!”

“Dean.” Cas heaved a sigh, zipped the bag, and placed it carefully at his feet. “I no longer have access to my powers. I am, as you yourself said, a … baby in a trench coat.”

“Aw, Cas, don’t bring that up again! I was being a dick when I said that.”

“This doesn’t make it less true.” Cas stared out the window for a while, watching old growth forest go by.

“Look, we’re gonna go home, cook you something nice to eat….”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Oh, come on. You must want something? Burgers? I could get fancy and make lasagna, like that hot chick on the cooking show.”

“I prefer neither hamburgers nor hot chick lasagna, thanks, Dean. But I would like an aspirin. Please.”

Dean regarded his companion with deep suspicion. “Headache again?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m not surprised, spending the fucking day _at a gun range!_ ”

“I just require an aspirin, Dean. I promise I will not launch into a life of debauchery like the colorfully imagined version of me you experienced in Zachariah’s vision.”

Dean puffed out his chest. “I’m just trying to keep you safe here! You’re not used to dealing with this human stuff yet.”

“So some day you will remove the padlocks from the medicine cabinet? If I promise to refrain from absinthe and orgies?”

Dean laughed and glanced again over at Cas, who was sitting, truculent as a teenager, slumped down in his seat, arms crossed, vengeful expression twisting his face. Dean had to admit, his friend looked very little like the degenerate version of Cas from Zachariah’s fantasies. He looked more like…. Well, he looked like someone Dean knew well. “I dunno. You _want_ an orgy?” Dean was richly rewarded for the dig by the mortified expression on Cas’s face. 

“You’re joking. About the orgy.”

“Hey, you’re getting better at picking that up! You disappointed? You look disappointed.”

Instead of replying, however, Cas pitched forward in his seat, holding his head and moaning.

Dean frantically pulled to the side of the rural highway and stopped the car. “Cas? You okay?”

“Police radio,” Cas grumbled, sitting up, still cradling his head.

“How the hell can you still hear that shit?”

“Painfully. Dean. The station has received word of at least two victims of what superficially appears to be an animal attack.”

“Full moon tonight. Well, that’s suspicious. Did the vics survive?”

Cas put a hand to his head and appeared to be listening. “Two _fatal_ attacks.”

Dean shook his head. “Okay. Good news, bad news I guess. Fewer witnesses, but that saves on silver bullets.”

“Did you want to stop at the mortuary on the way back? What?”

Dean was suddenly lost in thought. “Cas. You remember that case a couple weeks back? We thought we had a haunted house-“

“But as there was no EMF activity, we ascribed the activity to squatters. Yes.”

“Squatters. And their dogs. Their big fucking dogs, with big icky dog piles.” 

This got a laugh from Cas. A small one, but a laugh nonetheless.

“Not funny, Cas. My boots still stink.”

“And you’re thinking-“ Cas didn’t need to fill in the end of the sentence. 

“You packing silver bullets?”

“I always pack silver bullets.”

Dean grinned, and, gunning the car, executed a neat U-Turn and roared off.

 

“Dark and creepy. Just the way I like it. All we need is _Bad Moon Rising_ on the radio,” said Dean, showing his flashlight around the ruined house. Cas was hunkering down near a ramshackle bookcase. “Find anything?”

“There have been humans residing here in the recent past, as I doubt lycanthropes bother with bookmarks,” he said, cradling a paperback.

“So what’s on the wolvie bestseller list?”

Cas looked at the cover. He smirked and held it up, shining a flashlight on the cover.

“ _Archangels: the Spiritual World Beyond the World._ Oh boy.”

Cas flipped the book back open. “They are currently reading a dialog with Uriel. I wonder if the author was aware that he is currently deceased?”

“As well as a complete fucking asshole,” sighed Dean.

It was a tiny sound, just a whisper of a rustle.

“What was that?” murmured Cas, snapping the book shut as they listened to a creak somewhere in the house. 

“Don’t get jumpy. Might be the wind.” Dean’s silver knife flashed briefly in the moonlight.

“Dean, as you must have noticed, there is no prevailing wind tonight.”

“You got your piece out?”

Cas quietly slid the book under his arm and unholstered a pistol. “As I told you, I currently have exactly three silver bullets in my armory.”

“Make ‘em count.”

They stood together, back to back, keeping their breathing shallow, listening for the nonexistent wind.

There was flash of fur and a deep growl, and the bookcase came toppling down, pinning Cas beneath it. Dean felt himself slammed to the ground by something big and wet and hairy and smelly.

“Wolf! Cas!” yelled Dean, scrambling for his sliver knife. He felt the hilt and stabbed upwards blindly. The big thing that had been on top of him yelped and cringed back, in time for Dean to see there was another werewolf now on top of the bookshelf slobbering over Cas. Two werewolves? Great. Just fucking great.

A snap of jaws by his left ear. Dean slashed at the wolf near him again and leapt over towards the one drooling on Cas. He was still pinned under the bookshelf, one hand gripping a snarling, medium-sized werewolf by the throat.

“Cas! Now would be a good time for the silver bullet thing!” Dean shouted. Cas’s was keeping the wolf at bay while scrabbling for the gun, now just beyond his reach, with his free hand. Dean jabbed the wolf in the back, blood on silver, but then whirled around as the first wolf roared and sprang at him again. Dean plunged the silver blade into its chest and it fell back, whimpering, and he turned around yet again to stab at the wolf snapping at Cas. It growled and body checked Dean, knocking the knife out of his hand, sending it sliding over the floor. 

The wolf snarled again and tensed up to pounce, but fell in a sudden small explosion of blood and brain. Cas, gun finally in hand, had nailed it right in the head from under the damned bookshelf. Dean breathed, and then walked over to Cas. “Damn, dude, you gotta-“

Slam! The beast he had stabbed in the chest was now snarling on top of him. “God dammit, stay dead!” Dean screamed at it, grasping at its bloody throat.

Another shot rang out, and the writhing beast was suddenly a wet ball of bloody fur. Dean, still breathing hard, pushed it off. “Ew. Werewolf blood,” he said, regarding his now sticky front.

He crawled over on his hands and knees to where Cas was still lying underneath the bookshelf, gun trailing a coil of smoke. 

Dean shook his head in wonder. “Holy fuck, dude. You did that left handed?”

“It was my only free hand,” Cas told him. “Can you please help me. With this book shelf? It’s very heavy. And hard. To breathe.”

“Yeah. Sure man,” said Dean. He and Cas started to heave at the shelf, and managed to shove it off. Dean gripped Cas under the armpits and pulled him up still holding his pistol in a death grip. “You okay? Everything okay? Anything feel broken?”

“I think I want to go home,” said Cas, who had managed to stand, though somewhat shakily. 

Dean somewhat reluctantly released his grip. “Hey, yeah. We’ll go home, get a nice hot shower, wash off the doggie smell-“ 

A howl pierced the night.

Dean pivoted, pushing Cas in back of him as a third werewolf came crashing into the ruined room. They locked eyes, wolf and man, and then it charged them, fangs barred, spittle flecking.

A fucking pack? Dean sucked in his breath. Where the fuck had his knife gone? Fuck!

A pistol fired, smelling of gunpowder.

And it was down, head lolling to the side, blood pooling beneath it.

Cas stood, stock still behind Dean, gun arm still outstretched, breathing hard. 

“Cas?”

“I am out of silver bullets now, Dean,” Cas informed him. He faltered, and Dean pulled one of Cas’s arms over his shoulders.

“Okay, yeah, seriously. Time to get out of here.” Dean pressed his hands on Cas’s gun arm, slowly lowering it, extracting the gun from the former angel’s iron grip. 

“I think-“ Cas started. “I think I would be inclined towards eating soup.”

“That’s a good choice. Have I cooked you tomato rice soup before?”

“No, Dean.”

“Well, then, you’re in for a treat.”

Cas paused. Still shaking, he squatted down and picked up the Archangel book. 

“Some nighttime reading?”

“Yes.”

“Cas?”

“Yes?”

Dean pointed around the room. “Three silver bullets. Three head shots. Good job. Fucking great job, actually.”

“I believe that practice makes perfect,” Cas told him.

“Cas. If somebody, ever again, tries to tell you you’re a baby in a trench coat, kick them in the balls. Okay?”

That got a small smile. “All right, Dean.”

“Let’s go home.”

 

“So, any words of wisdom from the archangels?”

Cas looked up from the table. He was huddled over his book, bathrobe pulled tight around him, water dripping down from his wet hair. He sported a pronounced five o’clock shadow, as he still hadn’t quite got the hang of shaving. “The author apparently thinks there are only seven dimensions.”

“Well, that’s an oversight.” Dean, who was also wearing a robe, albeit with a bit more flair, laid a bowl of a rich, red tomato soup down in front of Cas, and also presented him with a napkin containing exactly two aspirins.

“I don’t think I need the aspirin any more. Thanks.”

“Werewolves cured your headache?”

“Something like that.”

Dean walked back to the kitchen and returned with his own bowl of soup, and took a seat opposite Cas. Cas carefully laid a marker in his Archangel book, and set it to one side, beside the unruly jumble of books in the place setting just next to him. Several of the books were opened. It looked very much as if someone had been in the middle of doing research and then had been abruptly called away.

Cas dipped his spoon into the bowl and, blowing on it, took a considered sip. “You are right, Dean. This is very good.”

Dean ignored his own soup, and instead ran a hand along the spine of one of the books piled up beside Cas.

Cas paused. “We will find him, Dean.”

“I know.”

“And we will bring him back.”

“I know.”

“And we will all eat soup. And laugh at your terrible jokes.”

“They’re not terrible!” Dean caught himself smiling. “They’re not terrible. And, yeah. Thanks, Cas.”

Cas folded his hands, looking at Dean. They locked eyes for a moment. And then Dean grabbed his spoon.

“Eat your soup, Cas.” 

“Yes, Dean.”


	2. Salt of the Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas go digging for information. But will they be able to gain cooperation from the creature they've sought out?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, well, this wasn't supposed to have chapters, but here's another little story in the same 'verse.

**Title:** Salt of the Earth  
 **Fandom:** Supernatural  
 **Author:** tikific  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Dean, Fallen!Castiel  
 **Warnings:** Cursing. No beta, so if you spaz out at minor spelling errors might be best to go fix a nice cocktail and read something else.  
 **Word Count:** 2,000  
 **Summary:** Dean and Cas go digging for information. But will they be able to gain cooperation from the creature they've sought out?  
 **Notes:** This is another chapter in the same 'verse as You Got the Silver, written for the same reason, to get out of a slump. No need to read that one first, but it's pretty short too. 

 

Idly scratching at the cast that encased his left forearm, Cas squatted down and regarded the rivulet of water trickling down the center of the cave.

“You think we'll be able to trap him?” asked Dean.

“We don't need to trap him, only to hold him for a set amount of time.”

“And you think it'll work?”

Castiel stood, shrugging his shoulders. He rubbed at the plaster-covered area between his thumb and forefinger. “Yes.”

“You don't get skeezed out?”

Cas tilted his head, wistful smile on his face. He had caught Dean's use of slang, and it pleased him. “No, I am not … _skeezed_. Why should I be?”

“You're an angel.”

“ _Was_ an angel.”

“Aren't you pissed off at these little creeps playing at being god?”

Cas measured out his words with careful teaspoons. “They are beings with certain powers: powers which may prove useful to us, to our purposes. I have no other overall attitude towards their existence. They exist because my Father willed it. Does that answer your question?” He rubbed his arm. The cast had been the result of Castiel's first ever trip to the emergency room. When it was clear he had sustained a break, he had expressed his desire to set the bone himself and let it heal or not, as a true hunter would, but Dean had become insistent. Cas had learned it was best to pick his battles, so he had acquiesced, and, as a Mr. Mick Taylor, had received an X-ray as well as a plaster cast on his wrist. And a stern warning to take it easy for a number of months. Which warning he and Dean had blithely ignored.

“You need something.”

“What do I need?” asked Cas.

Dean rummaged through the pack that had held their lunches and, a look of triumph tracing his handsome features, extracted a plastic fork. He handed it over to Cas, who only looked puzzled. Dean then managed to convey, through a complex series of gestures, the intention of the implement. Cas slipped the little utensil under the margins of his cast, and slid it down to the area that had been bothering him. He rubbed the plastic tines up and down over his inflamed skin. He smiled, eyes, rolling up into his head. 

Bliss.

“Thank you, Dean.”

“You sure you wanna come along?” asked Dean, coiling a length of rope.

“What? Why wouldn't I come along?”

“Dude, you got a bum wrist. Remember what the doc said?”

Cas stood stock still, absolutely determined. “I will not let you go alone.”

“You said you didn't think it was risky.”

“I said I thought we could hold him. And we can. We just need to follow the cave. Just follow the cave.”

 

“And I thought they smelled bad on the outside.”

Cas tilted his head. “That's a quotation from _The Empire Strikes Back_. And I believe it's a reference to the skins.” The sea was quite noisy here, so he needed to shout to make himself heard.

Dean unfolded the fur wrap on a rock, nodding and grinning. “Right and right.” He glanced out at the rocks, to the slick, fat creatures basking there at the mouth of the cave. “How close you think we can get before they, you know, are likely to squoosh us to death?”

Cas hoisted his own fur wrap and glanced out towards the rocky opening at the end of the tunnel. He smelled the salt spray. “Fairly near. If we approach carefully. I think I will be able to sense fear or aggression in them. So follow me.”

“You _think_ you'll be able to sense aggression?”

Cas paused. “It's difficult for me to be certain, with what little power I have left. But it might be enough to serve a purpose.”

“Aw, Cas, I didn't mean it that way. I'll follow you. But if you hear them thinking bad sea cow thoughts, you tell me, and I'm taking out the shotgun.”

“They are sea lions, Dean, not sea cows.”

“You coulda fooled me.”

A wave roared in and then retreated. It was getting near the time. Both clutching their sealskins, Dean followed Castiel as he picked his way over the rocks towards where the majority of the herd was gathered. After a time, picking among some of the lazy creatures, Cas signaled to stop, and he and Dean found a place to lie down, and then spread the fur wraps over themselves as if they were camped for the night.

Dean twisted himself around, whispering, “When he gets here, the big guy, will we know, Cas?”

Cas pulled something ouf of a pocket. It was the plastic fork. He inserted it under his cast, and gave it a good scratch. “We'll know, Dean.”

 

Sea lions are not small beasts. And he was the biggest by far. He waddled up out of the water and roared, his herd sounding back to him. And then the beast king lumbered up to one of the highest rocks, and took his place of honor, as below waves broke and his loyal subjects returned to slumbering.

Nodding to each other, Dean and Cas quietly rose and, keeping the furs wrapped tightly around them, approached the king.

They stood on either side, the only sound the splashing of sea water.

“One ... two ... three.”

On three, both me leapt onto the back of the sleek, fat beast, clinging desperately as he jerked up and let out a tremendous roar.

His herd rose as one and slipped like flowing quicksilver out into the water.

And then things got weird.

The sea lion shivered beneath the men and something shifted. It was a wild boar now. Cas lost his shaky grip and toppled from its back. It butted him, square in his sore arm. He shrieked as pain broke through him and crumpled to the ground.

“Cas!” Dean was still somehow clinging on.

“Dean! Hold on to it!”

_I'm insane_ , thought Dean. “Nice piggy!” he yelled, tightening his grip around its neck. It squealed and wriggled and writhed beneath him. And then something shimmered, and he was now holding on to a slowly slithering boa constrictor. “Why did you have to be a snake?” he moaned, now wrestling on the rocky ground with the coiled beast.

“Keep holding it,” said Cas.

“It's holding me,” yelled Dean as he felt a coil around his ankle.

There was another shift. The snake sprouted fur and growled. “You're a cat? It's a wildcat now! Shit.” It had tried clawing him, ripping the fabric of his jacket, but Dean held, bracing himself for a potent sneeze. “I'm allergic you asshole!” he howled, writhing around to to wipe the snot trailing from his nose on his shoulder while grasping the beast. 

“Cas! How many transitions to I have to hold on to this fucker?”

“Just hold on Dean!” Cas's voice was broken with the pain.

“Simmer down, asshole,” said Dean. And then it started to shift again and he braced, closing his eyes.

He felt the movement, fur retreating, bones jutting out, flesh wrapping them, something bigger, something much bigger....”

Dean opened his eyes when he realized.

He screamed.

And released his grip on the thing. 

But like a shadow in the night, Cas pounced, from somewhere, Dean had no idea where the fuck, and when the dust cleared, there he was, squatting on its chest like succubus, angel sword drawn and pointed under its chin.

Cas's angel sword?

Somewhere far away, lighting flashed and thunder cracked. Dean gasped. Unfurling from Cas's back, like so long ago, Dean would have sworn on a stack of Grand Grimoires that he glimpsed the shadows of two dark wings.

“What have you brought me, human?” said the thing lying beneath Cas: the pagan god. “A little angel? You would have made fine fodder for me in the day. Fine fodder!”

“I am no angel,” whispered Cas. “And you are not Sam Winchester.”

The thing that was not Sam – the thing that had taken his shape – grinned maliciously. “Ruined husk of an angel. You flatter me, little angel. Fluttering down to visit me. Little angel. Who is your master?”

“I have no master.”

The not-Sam tilted its head over, directing its horrible yellowy eyes towards Dean. “Always two. The master and his servant. Who are you, Brother-of-Sam?”

“I'm Dean Winchester, and we need you to answer a question, Proteus. Truthfully.”

“But what is truth, O Dean Winchester, Brother-of-Sam? How can I ever answer, if I am, as your little servant implies, a lie myself. Tsk. Such a quandry.”

“Look, buddy. We didn't crawl on our bellies all the way here to play fucking Twenty Questions. The deal is we hold you, we get answers. And I'd suggest you start answering before my 'servant' gets antsy with that sword!”

“Dean.” Cas's energy was flagging, his voice cracking. Blood now made a lazy trail, dripping from his cast. “Ask him. Ask him now.”

Dean steeled himself and glared at Proteus. “You're a telepath, right? That's how you read my brother? Okay, why don't you pull my question out of me?”

Cas looked confused. 

The not-Sam clucked its tongue. “There is a hole in your heart. You must needs find him to fill it. And your servant will follow. He needs your full heart. For it is his too.”

Dean was going to kick the stupid fucking Sam thing in the balls just then, but Cas put up his sore arm in a cautioning gesture, wincing as he moved it. So Dean remained silent.

“The one you seek is the price you paid. And the promise you made. And the chance you took. Bigger fish than I. Much bigger fish.”

Dean shook his head. “Yeah, angels and demons are a big deal. I didn't need you to tell me that.”

“Then ask your question.”

Dean paused. Cas was staring at him, sword starting to tremble, left arm held to his side, blood pooling on the cast, his face a mix of dirt and tears.

“I want my brother back.”

“He is human. He will not pass the gate.”

Dean felt all the life seep out of him. He sat back on a rock, choking off a sob. The answer. The true answer. He looked at his arms, the red scratches there a map of his failures. 

Don't ask. Not if you don't want to hear.

“Could he … ride another?” Cas's voice was barely above a whisper.

“Yes. Benny. Like I did with Benny?” asked Dean.

“You're a clever angel, aren't you?” asked the not-Sam. “Too clever for your own good. You've made a mess of things, haven't you?”

Cas faltered as Dean leapt, grabbing the sword and jabbing it at Proteus's neck. “Yes or no. Can Sammy hitch a ride out?”

“Yes.”

Dean dropped Cas's sword. He grabbed Cas around the waist and, being mindful of his shattered, bleeding arm, pulled him up off the god. He was trembling badly. Dean pulled Cas around so he was facing him and, cupping his face in a hand, told him, “You're all right. We'll get you out of here now. Okay? You're all right.”

“If you will allow me.” Dean started. He hadn't noticed yet another transition, but now instead of Sam Winchester there was an ancient, grey-bearded man standing beside them. Proteus reached over and grasped Cas's arm, causing Cas to moan in pain. Dean scrambled around and grabbed Cas's angel sword from the ground, but by the time he had it up, Cas was standing waiting patiently as Proteus cracked his cast like a nutshell and removed it. Cas held up his arm, flexing his fingers in wonder.

“Thank you. I didn't know you were a healer.”

“I didn't use my power. I used yours.”

Cas frowned at Proteus, but then the old man was a very large, slick sea lion, and he was tumbling off the rocks and out into the sea.

Cas and Dean shared a glance, and then Dean turned the sword around and handed it over, hilt first, to Cas. “I think this is yours.”

Cas nodded and grabbed it. After a moment of indecision, he tucked it in his belt.

“Where did it come from?”

“I have no _fucking_ idea.”

Dean chuckled. It still didn't sound quite right when Cas cursed.

“Did I say that right?” Cas wondered.

“You said that perfectly.” Dean gripped Cas's shoulder and inclined his head towards the top of the tunnel. “Well, since I can't do that neat trick of turning into a sea cow-”

“Sea _lion_.”

“Wanna head for the top?”

“All right.”

“And then we'll stop get burgers.”

“All right.”

“And then we'll hit the showers.”

“Okay.”

“And then we'll go rescue Sam.”

For just a bare moment, Castiel's face bloomed into something so light and sweet. And then he nodded and, making sure his sword was secure, they began to climb.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas continues to deal with being almost sort of human, and Dean gets annoyed with some local graffiti artists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I need to admit this is no longer a one-shot?

**Title:** Monkey Man (Part 3 of You Got the Silver)  
 **Fandom:** Supernatural  
 **Author:** tikific  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Dean, Fallen!Cas  
 **Warnings:** Cursing. No beta, so if minor spelling errors cause a twist of the panties, you might need go go commando baby.  
 **Word Count:** 2,000  
 **Summary:** Cas continues to deal with being almost sort of human, and Dean gets annoyed with some local graffiti artists.  
 **Notes:** This was supposed to be a one-shot!!!

 

Cas stood next to the kitchen sink, twisting his wrist and glaring smite-fully at the faucet.

“You still trying to use the Force?”

This produced a deep, grievous frown. “I still possess some power. This is known. But I am currently unaware as to how to access it. All of it. I believe it would aid us, Dean. In our work.”

“Yeah, sure Cas. And you wouldn’t have to crawl around in the mud with the rest of us monkeys?”

Cas looked aggrieved. “I find no shame in being human, Dean. Although I will admit I don’t care for being itchy. But it is a just … _consequence_ for my many actions.”

“So you do admit being human is a punishment? You know, I remember when you used to call humans works of art.”

“They are!”

“But not, _‘We_ are,’”

Cas shrunk, chin to chest, angry and frustrated. 

Dean leaned over and cranked the faucet. The water suddenly poured into the sink and rattled down the drain. “Look, for what it's worth, I don't think turning on the hot water tap with the awesome power of your mind is gonna get us too far.” 

Cas studied Dean, who had been carrying a bucket of turpentine and some rags. “What are you doing?”

“Eh. Those vandals hit us again last night. Little fuckers. Wish I could catch them and wring their necks.”

“Dean….”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been thinking. When you and … Sam came upon this place, it had been deserted for a number of years? Decades even?”

Dean idly twirled a paintbrush. “Yup, the Men of Letters eggheads had pretty much flown the coop. Why?”

“The entrance: at that time, was it marred by graffiti?”

“No, not a mark! I think these guys exist just to fuck up my life.”

Cas seemed far away. “Can I see?”

“Sure. It’s just outside. Why? What do you think, Cas?”

“I don’t know.” Cas accompanied Dean outside, where, indeed, several bright hues of spray paint now marred the front entrance to the bunker-like headquarters of the Men of Letters cult.

“Son of a bitch. It gets worse every time.” Still grumbling and vowing terrible revenge, Dean crouched down and began to pry open the can of turpentine.

“Dean, wait a moment.”

“What?”

“These symbols: they seem … familiar somehow.”

“You recognize the tags? Good! Let’s hunt the little shits down and kick their asses.”

Cas was at the door, tracing the markings with a long-fingered hand. “I believe they may have magical significance, Dean.” He scratched the rough stubble under his chin. “I can’t seem to recall what it is though.”

“You’re not going fifty first dates on me, are you Cas?”

_“What?”_ Castiel had turned all the way around, his voice almost, but not quite, breaking.

Dean pointed to his head and circled his index and middle fingers around in the universal gesture for insanity. “Can’t remember all you remember any more?”

“It’s … frustrating. Like my lack of access to my power.”

“Don’t sweat it. Everybody has their off days. Let's get this crap off the door, and then we'll go inside, get a beer….”

“No, wait. There may be a way.” Cas stood up straight, squaring his shoulders, and cast a hand towards the door. “Stand back, Dean.”

“Wait, why am I standing back if you’re right up close?”

“Blowback.”

“Cas, don’t-“

But Castiel was already staring down the door, barking out some kind of invocation in a language Dean recognized as Enochian. Nothing happened for a beat, but then, accompanied by an impressive whooshing noise, the markings on the door flared up, glowing like St. Elmo’s fire.

“Cool,” was all Dean had time to say, because then there was a sound like a distant crack of thunder, the ground underfoot trembled and bucked, and then a blast, like someone had just set off a small bomb in their doorway. Cas was thrown backwards, and Dean leapt to catch him.

Dean stood for a moment, breathing hard, holding his arms around Cas’s waist, watching as the smoke to cleared. 

The door was completely clean.

“Whoa,” said Dean, carefully setting a somewhat singed Cas upright. “Well, that sure saved us on paint remover.”

“But who was it?” asked Cas. “Who made the markings?”

“Dude, looks like you just erased the evidence,” said Dean, smiling and waving a hand at the pristine doorway.

“Son- Son of a bitch!” said Cas.

Dean's face bloomed into a grin. “Look, that's enough explosions for one morning. We’ll go inside, get you cleaned up, and then we’ll hit the books to figure out your magical markings. You know, the old-fashioned way. Okay?”

 

Circadian rhythmicity was a human trait that had so far eluded the former seraphic being, Castiel.

Dean didn’t pay this particular aspect of his friend's existence much mind: it was good enough for him as long as Cas remembered to eat occasionally and didn’t nick an artery while he was shaving. To be honest, Dean had never been one to place a high value on sleep. Time enough when you’re dead, he always said.

It did mean that Cas rarely ended up slumbering in an actual bed. On the contrary, what the former angel found to be appropriate nap time surroundings seemed more fitting to a family pet, if Dean had ever owned a family pet. On various occasions Dean had found him collapsed under the dinner table, or nestled along an empty bookshelf in the library, or that one time, curled up on the hood of the Impala. Cas had explained that it was warm up there while the engine block cooled. Fortunately, this had been a mild summer’s day, but this had invoked a stern warning from Dean regarding bedding down outside. 

Cas appeared to like sleeping while riding in the car, and would often doze off contentedly when they drove back after a successful hunt. He snored, but it was a soft, comforting snore, almost like a sigh. 

This was why Dean was not terribly surprised to find, at three am when he shuffled out to the kitchen for a drink of water, Cas lying prone, stretched out up on the counter among dirty dinner dishes and a few dusty books. After a moment's pause and reflection, Dean grabbed a mug from the drain and filled it with tap water.

“Gadgad.” It was a soft sound, like a moan.

“You … have a sudden interest in Lady Gaga?” asked Dean, sipping his water.

“Dean.”

“Yes?”

Cas was sitting up on the counter, rubbing his eyes. He always woke up as if the concept of sleep still eluded him. “I'm an idiot Dean.”

Dean leaned his butt against the counter and drank his water. “Yeah, Cas, you're a real moron.”

“I should have remembered.”

“Cas, just asking, but exactly how many days has it been since you've slept?”

“What? I don't remember.”

“Then, just a suggestion, but maybe it would be good if you, you know, slept somewhere a little less … kitchen counter-y?”

Cas had slipped off the counter and was holding Dean by his lapels. “Qin Qiong and Yuchi Gong!”

Dean paused a beat to let that sink in. “You wanna order out Chinese?”

“I should have known their signatures.”

“And who are Chin Guard and Yucca Plant?”

“Gate gods, Dean.”

_“Gate gods?”_

“Gate gods!”

Dean stood stock still for a moment. He put down his mug, feeling his heart beating. “Gate. As in gate. Like, go in and out of a gate.”

“My invocation spell must have worked after all. Well. One of them, anyway.”

“Heh. Maybe the one where you turned your hair blue? That was cool.” The awesome azure hue that was apparently blowback from the spell had quickly faded, unfortunately. And Cas of course hadn't understood any of Dean's many hilarious David Bowie jokes. 

“Gate gods,” said Cas, who slumped back on counter, head drooping, eyes blinking. “They found us.”

“Well, good work,” said Dean, putting an arm around Cas's waist and hauling him back up to a standing position beside him. “And you know what we're gonna do to celebrate?”

“No Dean.”

“Memory foam!”

“Memory foam, Dean?” Cas was now half-stifling a yawn.

“It remembers you. You'll see! Trust me.”

 

“I'll be here on the left.”

“Wait, why do you always get the left?”

“Because the left is my side!”

“You could share.”

“There are only two sides: how could we share? Besides, we look more intimidating this way.”

“Let me look at you. Nope, you don't look intimidating to me. Not at all.”

“What if I held a stare, like this?”

“You just look peevish, Yuchi.”

“Can we please get down to business, Qin?”

“All right, all right, enough!” said Dean, who had just hopped out of the bushes, Cas right behind him, to confront the two gate gods quarreling at the front door. “And keep those fucking spray cans where I can see them.”

“Oh, goodie, it's the humans!” said Yuchi, the darker of the two. “Now we can fight!”

“Look, do we really have to fight?” asked Dean. “Can't we just talk it out?”

“No, we have to fight,” said Yuchi. “That's the way things are done.”

“I'm just.... I'm already sore, and I'm not in the mood.”

“You started it,” Qin, the paler of the two, told him. “You're the one waving a gun at us.”

“You've been tagging my home! You're lucky I didn't just shoot you two on sight.”

“Dean!” said Cas. 

“Seraphim!” said Qin, his eyes shining at Cas. “I get to fight the Seraphim. Pretty please? I let you go on the left.”

“I always go on the left,” said Yuchi.

“It's _Seraph_ ,” said Cas. 

“What?” asked the gate gods.

“ _Seraphim_ is plural. And there is only one of me.”

“Hmpf! Gramma nazi.”

“Correct grammar is important. Learn some Hebrew,” said Cas.

“Cas....” cautioned Dean.

“Okay, Mr. Smarty Angel!” said Qin. “Let me hear you say something in Mandarin!”

Cas was standing very close to the door god. _“Cao ni ma.”_ Qin was suddenly wielding a sword instead of a spray can.

“Okay, Cas, I take it you didn't just tell him to have a nice day,” said Dean. “Look, that was your fault, you asked him to speak Chinese!”

Dean heard it before he felt it: the crack of a whip. And quite suddenly, he was no longer holding his gun. 

Qin grunted, a blade glinted, and Cas and Qin crossed swords. 

Dean looked over to where Yuchi now held both a whip and Dean's gun. “Oh, goddammit, why does it have to be Indy Jones?” grumbled Dean.

“What is an indeejonez?” asked Yuchi, who let out a yelp as Dean stepped forward and smacked him in the jaw before he could once again crack the whip. “That wasn't gentlemanly!”

Dean punched Yuchi in the gut, and then looked over approvingly as Cas kicked Qin in the balls and took his sword. Dean clobbered Yuchi again, grabbed his whip, and wound it around Yuchi's neck.

“You got yours, Cas?”

“Yes, the _Seraph_ got his,” Cas called, holding both swords crossed at Qin's neck.

“Nit-picker,” muttered Qin.

“Look,” said Dean, “I know how these things work. We need your help. And now you have to help us.”

Qin and Yuchi heaved dramatic sighs and rolled their eyes at one another.

“What?” said Dean. 

“Not gonna happen,” Yuchi told him, shaking his head.

“Wait, why not? We defeated you!”

“Let them talk, Dean,” said Cas.

“What you're gonna ask, it's big,” said Yuchi.

“The biggest,” said Qin.

“So you're gonna have to talk to the big boss,” said Yuchi.

“The big boss?” asked Dean.

“I think I know who they mean,” said Cas.

“Can you bring him to us?” asked Dean.

Qin and Yuchi exchanged a glance. They started to laugh.

Both gods disappeared with a pop. There was a rush of wind, and the door started to glow. The wind died and, as Cas and Dean watched, strange markings appeared once again all over the door.

“Son of a bitch! Those bastards tagged us again!” said Dean, waving his hands in frustration.

“Dean, it's all right,” said Cas. “I think I know who we need to talk to now.”

“But we just spent a month trying to conjure these two guys. _Wasted_ a month.”

Cas was sticking Qin's sword as well as his own into his belt. “We'll go inside now, Dean. We will drink alcohol together. And then we'll embark on research. Uh, old-fashioned research.”

Dean's face edged into a smile. He reached out and grabbed Cas's shoulder. “You're right. When you're right, you're right.” And so, side by side, they opened the door, and entered. “We gotta clean up that shit too,” said Dean, touching the markings the gate gods had made. “I’ll go get the turpentine.”

They crossed the threshold. 

The overhead lights sparked and flickered.

But there were no overhead lights. There could be no overhead lights.

Because they were now standing outside in a strange, windblown landscape, amid ruined, alien architecture.

Dean, his gun already drawn, looked back at Cas, who had his sword at the ready.

“Cas?”

“Yes.”

“I think we’re not in Kansas anymore.”


	4. No Expectations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas are unexpectedly thrown into a hunt for a pagan god in a strange parallel universe.

**Title:** No Expectations (Part 4 of You Got the Silver)  
 **Fandom:** Supernatural  
 **Author:** tikific  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Dean, Fallen!Cas  
 **Warnings:** Cursing. No beta.  
 **Word Count:** 2,000  
 **Summary:** Dean and Cas are unexpectedly thrown into a hunt for a pagan god in a strange parallel universe.  
 **Notes:** I sometimes read Wikipedia for fun. Blame them.

 

Dean regarded the pile of guns, bullets, various enchanted knives, swords, grenades, salt rounds, holy water and pointed sticks with a practiced eye.

“Looks like we didn’t do so bad for being caught with our pants down.”

Cas, kneeling on the ground across from Dean, pulling a lock pick from the hem of his flannel shirt, paused and frowned, looking down at the waistband of his jeans. He looked back at Dean. “Uh. Is that-?”

“Figure of speech.”

Cas gave a relieved nod and tossed the pick on top of the pile. Dean smiled back and chucked in a little tube of superglue he had secreted in an interior pocket in his jacket. 

“I think that’s it. All right, weapons check, and then let’s get everything packed away, and give me the download on this guy.”

“He is old. Ancient among your pagan deities. He is known as a god’s god. Two-faced. Literally two-faced. He defines duplicity.” Cas picked up the sword he had obtained from Qin Qiong, the door god, and examined it, sighting down the blade. 

Dean, who knew fuck-all about swords other than they were pointy, checked the magazine in his M1911. “Powerful and sleazy. So, a trickster basically.”

“Of a sort. Which is to say, I doubt any of our weaponry will carry much of an impact.”

“Hey, even if any of this shit did any good, we’re likely to drop it when the dude smacks us against the wall. Which I assume is one of his moves.”

Cas grimly shoved both his own sword and Qin’s into his belt. Many millennia of faithful service as a soldier of the Lord had done little to prepare him for a life that amounted to little more than getting slapped around by more powerful beings. And right now, just about every stripe of being was in fact stronger than Castiel. He gazed at their surroundings: grassy, rolling hills studded with what appeared to be the ruins of ancient temples. Sadness washed over him as he realized he had no idea where he was.

“I could have zapped us out of here. I could have zapped us _to_ him, and forced his cooperation!”

“Woulda coulda shoulda, Cas. We’re here now, right? We got _us_.” 

“A human and what’s left of a seraph.”

“Look, let’s spare the emo angel crap. And for a mud monkey and monkey-in-training we did all right with Chin Guard and Yucca Plant!”

Cas sighed. “Has it occurred to you that it was too easy, Dean? That Qin and Yuchi let us overpower them?”

“Yes, it has occurred to me, Cas. Wanna hit it?”

Somehow, the pile of armaments had been transferred back onto the persons of Dean and Cas, tucked in belts and jammed in pockets and secreted into hems and stuck in jacket linings, so they stood up and looked around. Dean inclined his head, and they headed up to the top of a low hill topped by a large piece of masonry that looked like it had once decorated the façade of a temple.

“Which way? Ideas?” asked Dean.

“One of the main structures devoted to him in antiquity was the Portae Belli. Do you see it down there?” 

Dean squinted into the distance. “The pretty doors, huh? Looks like they’re open for business.”

“Opened doors traditionally signified a state of warfare.”

“Then we go locked and loaded I guess.” Dean pulled out his M1911, and Cas unsheathed his angel sword. They silently approached the temple. Despite the rough-hewn appearance, the structure appeared to be more or less intact. 

They converged on the entrance, Dean on one side, Cas on the other. Dean poked his nose and the muzzle of his pistol inside. “Pitch fucking dark in there,” he whispered, grabbing a flashlight out of his khaki jacket. “Stay close.”

Dean darted inside, pointing the flashlight along with his gun. 

He immediately spotted movement. He froze, breathing hard.

“Wait. Dean.” Cas’s voice was soothing, close to his ear. Cas reached out a hand and placed it over Dean’s, and gently tilted the flashlight down a fraction. 

The other party lowered their own flashlight. It was Dean, staring at his own reflection. “Mirror?”

“Mirrors,” said Cas. Dean lowered his gun and swept the flashlight around the room. It was completely lined, floor to ceiling, with reflective surfaces. Everywhere and from every angle Dean and Cas stared back at Dean and Cas. And down the hall there were legions of Deans and Cas’s watching over them.

“Oh, no,” said Dean, suddenly turning around and pointing the flashlight in the direction they had just come. He stared back into another very annoyed Dean Winchester. “Okay, so I guess backtracking won’t work. Fucking A.”

Cas was silent for a long moment. He tightened his grip on Dean’s shoulder. “That way,” he said, pointing the sword.

“Is your Spidey sense tingling?”

“No. I don’t sense any arachnid activity. But I feel a slight breeze coming from that direction.”

Dean led the way through the corridors, keeping flashlight and gun pointed ahead, while Cas urged him on. “I really need to get over myself,” muttered Dean as, for at least the dozenth time, he jumped at the sight of his own reflection. 

“I’m sorry I can’t get us out of here. Any more.”

“Cas, no emo crap, remember? Hey, you know what? This really reminds me of that time I took Sammy to a cheap ass county fair. I lost him in the hall of mirrors. Scared the shit out of me. Out of both of us.”

“There it is!” said Cas as they finally came upon a shaft of light. Cas started on ahead. 

“Wait, Cas.”

“What?”

“This is going to make me sound like an idiot, but I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Do you have an alternative?”

Dean turned the flashlight back at the passageway they had just traversed. Many Deans and Cas’s glared back at him. “Well, whatever, I’m definitely getting sick of this shit.” He nodded and they emerged through the doorway, weapons raised, blinking into the light. He switched off the flashlight and looked around, confused. “This place seems familiar.” They were standing in a field as before, but the terrain was now flat instead of rolling hills. It resembled farmland. There was the sound of a stream running at the bottom of a small incline. 

Dean turned back to see the building from which they had just emerged. It didn’t much resemble the ancient rough-hewn stone temple they had entered: this was covered in fresh plaster and appeared to have just received a new whitewash. 

Hanging up over the doorway were a pair of ceramic theater masks, one smiling and one frowning. “I’d say this dude has a flair for the theatrical.”

“Comedy and tragedy,” said Cas.

“But aren’t these masks for Greek theater? I thought our dude was Roman?”

“The Romans appropriated Greek culture with impunity. I don’t suppose our man is any different.” Cas suddenly gasped. He pitched forward, his sword falling to the ground.

“Cas!”

Cas’s crumpled to his knees, moaning and wrapping his arms around his torso. Dean was down on the ground beside him, holding him. “What the hell?”

Cas cried out as suddenly his back exploded, ripping his jacket and throwing out a great dark cloud. Dean held tight and watched in horror as the dark shape growing from Cas's back halted in mid-air, hovering around them, fluttering in the wind.

_Wings._

Cas had wings. Big fucking flapping black-feathered wings.

“Dude, you okay?” asked Dean, holding onto Cas’s face. 

Cas glimpsed the wings and shot to his feet, his face a mask of terror.

“These aren’t mine!”

“Well, they’re sort of attached to you,” Dean pointed out. 

Cas tore off the remains of his badly torn jacket and shirts and reached around for his right wing, pulling it along in his hand, regarding it with a look of betrayal. “These aren’t mine, Dean. This isn’t my true form.”

“Hey, look at me. Look at me!” Dean had Cas’s face in his hands, pulling him around. “It’s okay, Cas. Someone is fucking with us. He’s probably fucking with us: you said he’s a trickster. Look, just go with it. Like it’s a Halloween costume or something. A really _awesome_ Halloween costume.” 

Cas swept his wings in irritation. It was a pretty impressive sight. 

“I wish we were back in Mirror World. I could show you. Oh, hey!” Dean had spotted the stream running nearby. Dean grabbed Cas’s arm and walked him down to the bank for a look at his reflection. “See? Pretty badass, huh?”

The wings unfurled, and then gave an irritated flap, raising a cloud of dust. “I would rather have my jacket, Dean.” Cas wrapped his arms around his chest and shivered.

“Yeah, kinda hard to manage a shirt with those things, huh? Maybe we could get you a scarf.”

Cas’s eyes blazed in a manner that suggested a scarf would not please him. But then his expression softened. “Dean. What has happened to you?”

“What?” asked Dean, peering hopefully over his shoulders. No, no badass wings grew from Dean's back. Cas grabbed his arm and motioned for him to look into the water. Dean put a hand to his face in surprise. “Oh, holy shit! I must be … what? Fifteen? Sixteen years old?” Dean looked down at his own body: his clothing was now a size too big for him. “This is pretty cool. I mean, nowhere near as cool as wings. But I feel like I have a few less miles on me, you know?”

“But you earned those ‘miles,’ Dean. I don’t think this is a good thing.”

Dean shrugged.

Wrapping his wings tightly to his body, perhaps for warmth or perhaps to minimize them, Cas shivered. “I feel … unsettled. The feeling I think you were describing before we came out of the hall of mirrors.”

Dean gave his teenage reflection in the water a rakish grin. “Like I said, play along. That’s what we had to do with the Trickster.”

“I don’t remember that incident fondly,” muttered Cas.

Both of them were distracted by a small pop over the field up behind them. Dean turned just in time to see the fiery rose bloom in the sky. “Fireworks! Cas, come on, let’s see who’s shooting them.” Dean ran back up the hill. Cas, burdened by his unwanted wings, picked his way more slowly after him.

Standing in the field outside the building there was a little boy, lighting a line of firecrackers. “Fire in the hole!” he yelled as he tossed them away. They sputtered and crackled and made a pleasing amount of smoke and noise.

Dean held his breath at the sight. “Sammy?” he whispered.

The boy turned and his smile lit up the sky. “Hey, Dean! I got a ton of illegal stuff from the Indian Reservation. Help me light it.”

Dean ran over to his little brother and threw his arms around him. “Sammy! It’s you.”

“Ugh! Don’t be such a girl, Dean!” grumbled the boy.

“We found him, Cas! We found him!”

Castiel had finally made it to the top of the hill, panting, his dark wings drooping. He regarded the boy with curiosity.

The boy pointed, giggling, to Cas. “Who’s your wingman, Dean? Ha!”

“This is Cas, Sammy. Don’t you know him?”

“He looks gooney with those wings. Gooney bird, ha!” The boy extended his arms and pretended to fly around the field.

“He won’t know me, Dean,” said Cas softly.

“Yeah, I guess he’s too young.”

“Dean. That’s not Sam. As you know.”

“No! Come on, Cas! That’s Sam. We found him.”

Cas bit his lip. “No, Dean. That’s your memory of Sam. The real Sam is still out there.”

Dean glared. “We found Sam! Cas, quit being a jerk. We found him.”

“What’s the matter Dean?” asked the boy.

Cas tilted his head, frustrated. “I’m sorry, Dean, but this isn’t Sam. We still need to find Sam.”

“Shut up! This is my brother!”

“Dean….”

“Shut up shut up shut up!” Dean screamed, holding his ears and stomping his feet.

Cas gasped. One of the theater masks that had been hanging above the temple door had somehow attached itself to his face. 

“What the hell?” asked Dean, watching as Cas tried unsuccessfully to pry the grinning mask off. Dean laughed as Cas grasped at it more and more desperately, his wings now flapping out to the side with his frustration. 

“Hey, he does look like a gooney bird,” Dean told the little boy, who had stopped running around and came to watch as Cas fell to his knees, still desperately scratching at the comedy mask fixed to his face. “Who’s laughing now, Cas?” asked Dean.

Cas's body twisted in the dirt, wings twitching throwing up dust.

“Dean,” said the boy. “I don’t think he can breathe.”

Dean stopped laughing and looked at Cas, wings flying everywhere, hands clawing at his face. There was blood now seeping around the mask.

“Oh,” said Dean. “Oh! Oh, god.” He looked down at the boy. “Sammy, it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

“He’ll die, Dean,” stated the boy.

Dean dropped beside Cas, whose struggling had become more and more feeble. Dean pulled desperately at the mask. “I didn’t mean what I said. I don’t want you to shut up, Cas. Please! Please, don’t die!” He looked around. 

Cas twitched one last time, and then stopped moving. His arms rolled limply to the side. His fingers were blue.

Dean grabbed a stone from the ground. He held it up. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. And he brought it smashing down on the mask.


	5. I Just Want to See His Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas continue their search for a pagan god with a dark sense of humor.

**Title:** I Just Want to See His Face (Part 5 of You Got the Silver)  
 **Fandom:** Supernatural  
 **Author:** tikific  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Dean, Fallen!Cas  
 **Warnings:** Cursing. No beta.  
 **Word Count:** 2,000  
 **Summary:** Dean and Cas continue their search for a god with a dark sense of humor.  
 **Notes:** This one gets a little Destiel-y. Sorry to all concerned.

 

No light.

No heat.

No air.

No air.

Castiel’s human lungs burned. Why couldn’t he see?

Where was Dean?

He was in that cold place again. That terrible cold place. So far from his brothers, so far from his Father.

He felt a small hand on his arm. A soft voice in his ear.

“He won’t let you go. Come on.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

Cas awoke with a start, wondering if it was another nightmare

“I’m so sorry.”

He gazed upwards, trying to focus his eyes. Dean was kneeling in the dirt, holding him, eyes squeezed shut, rocking gently back and forth, muttering apologies.

Cas tried to make words come, but his throat felt gritty, like sandpaper. Somewhat slowly and clumsily, he raised one hand and managed to touch Dean’s face.

“Cas,” Dean whispered. The arms tightened. “Are you all right, man?”

Castiel painfully wriggled out of Dean’s grasp. It wasn’t easy, as Dean had a death grip on him. What the hell had happened? His throat felt like he had gargled with razor blades. His face was scratched to hell, there was blood under his fingernails, his back ached, and he had a splitting headache.

“Whoa, whoa there,” said Dean, darting up as Cas stumbled to his feet and looked around, hand on his burning throat. “You all right?”

“Need a fucking aspirin,” Cas managed to rasp.

Dean was there, cupping his face and laughing. “Dude, when we get back, you can have the whole bottle.”

Cas glared at him and lurched back, nearly falling as he tripped over some shattered pottery. He cursed, kicking at the shards on the ground.

“Careful,” said Dean.

But Cas was squatting down, scrabbling in the dirt for the pieces. He got two large shards in his hand and fitted them together. It was a mask. A blood-stained mask.

_Oh._

“I’m sorry,” said Dean again. He was hunkered down next to Cas, face all dirty and tear-stained. 

Cas reached out a thumb and wiped away some of the dirt from Dean’s cheek. “It’s all right, Dean. It wasn’t you. I think you were partly under an enchantment when he de-aged you.”

“I guess I was kind of a dick as a kid.”

Cas nodded sadly. “Kind of.”

Dean smiled, a weary smile.

“Anyway. We need to spare the emo hunter crap if we’re gonna get out of here.”

Dean grinned and stood, pulling Cas up with him. “Damn, I think you broke your nose. _I_ broke your nose. You’re gonna have a shiner.”

Cas looked behind him. “At least the wings are gone.”

“Yeah. And so is Sammy.”

“That wasn’t Sam, Dean,” said Cas. It should have made him feel better, but he only felt worse. Something occurred to him. “When we were in the Portae Belli, what were you thinking of, just before we came out?”

“The hall of mirrors? Like I told you, I was thinking about when I took Sam to a county fair. And I may have wished you had your mojo back, because….” Dean paused. “Oh! He read me, didn’t he?”

Cas nodded. “And I think it was possibly amplified by all the reflections.”

“Walked right into it. Fuck. But he couldn’t get a fix on you?”

“I’m … different.” Cas wrapped his arms around himself and shivered, suddenly feeling cold and alien. Dean shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around Cas’s bare shoulders. Cas smiled thinly and worked his arms into the sleeves, noticing that Dean kept his arms around him, but not caring. He patted one sleeve and extracted Dean’s bottle of superglue. He frowned at it.

“You got an idea?” asked Dean.

“Yeah. I think I have an idea.”

 

“Are you ready?”

Dean clutched the object hidden underneath his shirt, shut his eyes in fierce concentration and nodded grimly. 

“It’s up to you. Remember them. Fix them in your mind.”

Dean nodded, and he and Cas darted out of the hall of mirrors, emerging back to the landscape covered with rolling hills and ancient ruins.

Dean exhaled.

“You missed him.”

“Yeah, you just missed him.”

Dean and Cas turned around to confront Qin and Yuchi, the gate gods, who were lounging on either side of the door. 

“Oh, hey, that’s too bad,” said Dean. “Maybe we’ll just hang on home, then. Oh, wait, that’s right, you guys sent us to this shit hole!”

“You’re not going anywhere until you give us back our weapons,” Qin told them.

Cas and Dean exchanged a glance. “Oh, you want your stuff back?” asked Dean.

“Yes, give them back.”

Dean shrugged at Cas. “Okay. Here.” And at that each pulled out a ceramic theater mask – Cas’s containing many great cracks – and slammed them onto the faces of Qin and Yuchi as if they were pie-facing them.

The gate gods emitted an unearthly piercing scream and fell, writhing, to the ground. Then Qin crawled on top of Yuchi, and, after a bit of moaning and tangling bodies that Dean would have wished he hadn’t been party to viewing, their flesh melted together, and they became as one.

“Ew. I didn’t need to see that,” Dean grumbled.

The god stood up. Although he had just one body, he now wore the two faces that had been the theater masks: mournful Tragedy in front of his head and the ruined, grinning Comedy on the back.

“How did you know?” asked the Tragedy Janus face.

“They musssht have cheated,” grumbled Janus’s Comedy face. A few of his front teeth were cracked, probably due to damage to his mask.

“Let’s just say, we’ve had some experience with Trickster gods who aren’t quite what they seem,” Dean told him. “Do you know what we’re here for?”

“Yesssh, you’re idiotssss,” spat the shattered Comedy face.

“You really want to smuggle someone _out_ of heaven?” asked the Tragedy face.

“He's my brother,” said Dean. “He's not supposed to be there. We were locking off the gates and he got … stuck.”

“Is thissssh the Metatron thing?” sighed Comedy. “You Judeo-Chrissstiansssh and your complicated ritualsss. Give me the old dayssssh! We'd ssssshacrifice a goat....”

“Brother, we should hear them out,” said Tragedy.

“Why sssshould I hear them out! They ruined my facssshe.”

“You tried to kill Cas!” Dean told them, though Cas put out a restraining hand.

“It wassssh you who would kill your friend,” Comedy spat. “Thisssch ssshtupid quesssht. You don’t even know if he livesss.”

“He lives,” said Cas. “He spoke to me.”

“What?” asked Dean.

“When I was unconscious, Sam was there. He was there.” Cas stated this with an absolute certainty.

Dean looked, just for a second, as if he was about to cry.

“We could aid them,” Tragedy allowed. “They have come a long way.”

“They sssshattered my masssk!” wailed Comedy.

“What if I … mended you?” asked Cas.

“Can you do that?” Dean whispered. 

“You can repair my brother?” asked the Tragedy face. 

Cas shrugged. “It’s worth a try, I think.”

“What do you mean, worth a try? Are you sssserioussssh?” asked Comedy. But Cas had taken a cautious step forward towards Janus, raising his hand. He cast a nervous glance back at Dean, who nodded encouragement, and then, steeling himself, placed a hand on Janus’s head and closed his eyes. There was a humming sound, and a soft glow emitted from his hand.

“Ouch!” bellowed the Comedy mask. Cas stumbled back, blinking and disoriented. Dean grabbed him to steady him.

“How are you, brother?” asked Janus’s Tragedy mask.

“That stung,” Comedy complained. Janus’s hands found the back of his head, and ran over the now smooth surface of his mask. “But I think it’s fixed.”

“Hey,” said Dean, looking at Cas. “You un-broke your nose!” 

Cas felt his own face. The scratches were gone as well. “Blowback. I guess?” he told Dean.

“We owe them thanks,” said Tragedy.

Comedy grumbled again. “Come here, human.” Dean, looking uncertain, approached Janus. 

Comedy noisily horked up a loogie and spat into Dean’s hand.

“Uh. Ew,” said Dean, gingerly holding a drool-coated key.

“Thank you,” said Cas.

“Approach again our temple,” Tragedy told them. “The doors will take you home this time.”

Cas nodded and, grabbing Dean’s arm, let him back into the Portae Belli. “Before they change their minds,” he whispered. “These gods are … unpredictable.”

Dean looked around, surprised to see that the inside of the temple looked like the inside of a temple. The mirrors were gone. It was now lit by a soft glow. Cas strode towards the doorway on the opposite side.

“Wait, Cas.”

“Yes, Dean?”

“You saw Sam.”

“I didn’t see him. I felt his presence. It led me back.”

Dean nodded, taking it in. “And, uh. What exactly is this for?” he asked, pulling Janus's key out of his pocket and holding it up.

A faint smile traced Cas’ features. “Dean. If there's a key, there must be a lock.”

And then he grabbed Dean’s arm again, and hauled him out the door, into the sunlight.

 

“Memory foam, Cas!”

Castiel sat on Dean's bed and smiled softly. “Really, Dean, I don't feel the need to sleep.”

“Then you can kick back for a few. I'll make dinner.”

“Janus healed me. Or I healed myself, I’m not certain. But regardless, I'm fine.”

“But-”

Cas poked at the mattress. “And, besides, I’ve found that the library shelf is a perfectly good place to sleep.”

“It's actually a fucking _weird_ place to sleep! Cas, look, I know I haven't been a stickler over this up to now, but you realize you're not a cat.”

“Cats are perfectly respectable creatures, Dean.”

“Look.... Just....” Dean sat down next to Cas. He sighed and looked miserable. “I wouldn't choose Sam over you. I mean, not like that. You know?”

“We've been over this, Dean. You were under the influence of Janus’s spell.”

“I mean, you're like a brother. Only not. I mean, I care about you too. Just not in that way. But in another way....”

Cas found he was tuning out of Dean's words, so he began to watch Dean's lips move instead. He always liked watching Dean speak, even if what was coming out of his mouth was a bunch of drivel. He liked watching Dean do pretty much anything: loading his gun, driving the car, eating burgers. 

He liked watching Dean.

He liked Dean.

Cas was never certain afterwards if it was his recent near death experience that was responsible – after all, he had died before – or whether he was curious, or whether he simply wanted to somehow staunch the torrent of emo hunter crap pouring forth from his friend, but the next thing he knew, he was gently holding Dean's face, and kissing him. It was nice, and it got even nicer when Dean, after a moment's hesitation, suddenly reached his hands under Castiel's jacket (which was actually Dean's jacket) and began enthusiastically kissing back. 

And then Dean's tongue found its way into Cas's mouth, and he felt himself slammed backwards onto the bed, Dean's hands stroking his body, Dean's hips grinding into his. And it was nice, if a little overwhelming. In fact, when one of Dean’s hands found Cas’s thigh and began to squeeze, it became a whole lot overwhelming.

Cas pushed Dean away. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“That noise.”

“Uh, the wind rattling?”

“We are inside a concrete bunker, Dean.” Cas wriggled out from under Dean and headed for the door.

“Wait! Cas! But this discussion was just getting interesting! God dammit....”

Dean leapt off the bed and followed Cas out to the main entrance. There was an enormous bear of a man with wild, long hair standing there. “Dudes!” he said.

Dean already had his gun raised. “Is this a homeless guy? Are you a homeless guy? How the hell did you get in here?”

“I came when you called, dudes!” said the guy, holding up a hand in a throwing horns gesture.  
“My bro said you needed a hand with the _ne plus ultra_ and shit.”

“Your bro?” asked Dean. “Satan?”

“Noooo, man, fuck that Judeo-Christian shit. My main man, Janus!”

“You know Janus?” asked Cas. He placed a hand on Dean’s gun and, much to his friend’s irritation, gently pressed down, lowering the weapon.

“I’m his main man! I’m Chaos!” He started headbanging: an impressive display, long hair whipping around. And then he started vamping some air guitar, which sent some real life heavy metal chords thundering through the bunker. It got Dean, not usually a reverent man, muttering a silent prayer that they had no windows to shatter, although it sounded like a couple of ceramic mugs that had been sitting out in the kitchen hadn’t survived the assault.

“You dudes got anything to eat? I’ve been storming and working up an appetite.”

Cas and Dean exchanged a glance. “Uh. Wanna call out for pizza?” tried Dean.

“AWESOME!” said Chaos.


	6. Live with Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas enjoy pizza with Chaos, share a smoke, and team up with an old friend to find a sea witch.

**Title:** Live with Me (Part 6 of You Got the Silver)  
 **Fandom:** Supernatural  
 **Author:** tikific  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Dean, Fallen!Cas, Benny  
 **Warnings:** Cursing. No beta. Casual drug use (this chapter).  
 **Word Count:** 2,000  
 **Summary:** Dean and Cas enjoy pizza with Chaos, share a smoke, and team up with an old friend to find a sea witch.  
 **Notes:** This was supposed to be a one-shot, so obviously, I fail at life. By the way, this will have seven chapter total. 

 

“So, Chaos likes pizza.”

Cas glanced into the kitchen, which currently contained a number of flat, grease-stained cardboard boxes and one extra-large pagan god.

“Yes, apparently Chaos likes pizza.”

“PIZZA IS METAL!” stormed Chaos, his booming voice shattering some nearby glassware.

“Is metal good?” Dean asked Cas.

“I assume so. Chaos?” Cas shouted into the kitchen. “Are you signifying your approval of pizza?”

“PIZZA IS AWESOME!” 

“He likes the pizza, Dean.”

“So, angel dude,” said Chaos, cramming a bit of trailing mozzarella into his mouth. “What flavor winger were you when you worked for the Big Man in the Sky? You weren’t one of those cherub dudes, were you? Man, those guys are annoying.”

“No, I was not a cherub.”

“They always want a hug. You know what I mean? Shifty little dudes.”

“I am…. I _was_ a seraph.”

“Holy shit no! Burning fiery wrath of the lord. That is excellent! As is this meat-lover’s special pizza. My most sincere compliments to the chef dude.”

“Cas,” whispered Dean.

“Yes?”

“So, we got Chaos in my kitchen, so to speak. And he's eaten all the pizza. So, what is he here for? Should we ask him about stuff?”

Cas held up a cautioning finger. “Let's ask. Chaos. You've sat at our table....”

“He's actually sitting on the kitchen counter,” Dean interjected.

“...And you've partaken of our food.”

“Aw, excellent! Time for wheeling and dealing,” said Chaos, tossing the pizza box on the floor and rubbing his hands together.

“Hey, I just mopped that floor,” groused Dean.

“We need a favor,” said Cas. “If you are inclined to do it. Dean's brother, Sam, is trapped against his will in heaven.”

Chaos wiped his greasy fingers on the front of his T shirt. “Oh, yeah, sure, you want me to go hump your boy out of the old pearly gates?” 

Dean and Cas exchanged a very confused glance.

“Uh, yeah,” said Dean.

“Sure thing, dudes. No problemo.”

“You can just do that? Bust into heaven?”

“I am the alpha and the omega, dudes. I am what was, what is, and what shall be. I am the waters, parted from the waters. And all that biblical mythology shit.”

There was a beat.

“But first, you have to do me one teeny tiny little favor.” Chaos squeezed his large thumb and forefinger together to illustrate the miniscule nature of the deed.

Dean sighed. “I knew it.”

“Hey, you don't think I work for take-out pizza? I'm Chaos!” The god banged his head and played air guitar, and, to Dean's ire, cracked more Men of Letters crockery.

“Dude, could you please cool it with that?” asked Dean. “I mean, they don't manufacture some of those china patterns anymore!”

“Oh, my most sincere apologies, dude!”

“So, what do you require from us?” asked Cas.

Chaos leaned in close and confided, “Well, I kinda messed up with my lady. Tiamat.”

“Tiamat,” said Dean. “That sounds familiar.”

“She is an immortal sea dragon,” said Cas.

Dean sighed. “Ah, well, that explains it.”

“Anyway, chick won't have anything to do with me. I just want someone to go to her, and, you know, tell her I'm.... Well....”

“'Sorry,' I think, is the expression you're seeking,” Cas told him.

“Yeah. That,” said Chaos, scratching the back of his neck. “Anyway, if you can do that, then I'll get my ass into heaven and grab your bro. And we'll be cool.”

“To get my brother rescued, we gotta bring candy and flowers to a vengeful mermaid?” Dean and Cas exchanged a glance.

“Dudes!” said Chaos, grabbing each man by a shoulder. “I knew I could count on you!”

 

 

Dean and Cas stood in the (mostly) clean kitchen. Chaos had finally departed to the sound of a guitar riff and several shattering teacups which, fortunately, neither Dean nor Cas ever used.

Dean leaned a push broom against the kitchen counter. He grabbed a hand-rolled cigarette from the counter and ignited a Zippo lighter. After taking a considered drag, keeping the smoke in his lungs for a long beat, he passed it over to Cas.

“I fail to understand why you remain certain that marijuana will not facilitate my inevitable descent into debauchery,” said Cas. “Especially as you will not allot me more than two aspirin at a time.”

“C'mon Cas. We've talked about this. It's not drugs! It's just a little weed. Besides, Chaos said this shit was organic. It probably has vitamins. Or something.”

The former angel nodded and took a practiced puff. 

“Though, you maybe look a little too natural doing that.”

“I could feign a coughing spell, Dean,” said Cas, his voice a shade rougher than usual, handing back the roach.

“Cas, talk to me,” said Dean, hopping up on the counter, cigarette dangling from his lips. “Did we or did we not just agree to intervene in a godly domestic dispute? And are you aware of the one call that cops least like responding to? A domestic dispute.” He handed the smoke over to Cas.

“It's for Sam.”

“Why can't my little brother get caught in normal antics? Like smoking pot? Or stealing a car.”

Cas inhaled, relaxing into it, leaning against the counter. “May I remind you, Dean, we are currently engaged in the former? And isn’t grand theft auto considered a routine part of the hunter’s trade?”

“Yeah, but we don't get caught.”

“Nevertheless, we need to do this Dean,” said Cas, handing over the cigarette once again.

Dean looked at Cas. “Yeah, but there's something we gotta do first.”

Cas looked confused, and it wasn’t the pot. “What's that?”

“Finish our discussion.” Dean hopped off the counter and carefully set down the butt end of the cigarette on a small china saucer. He moved over to where Cas was standing and, putting his hands on either side of him, pressed in close.

Ignoring Dean, Cas reached over and picked up the cigarette. He took a drag, then hooked his elbow around Dean's neck, pulled him close and kissed him. 

Dean backed off, exhaling smoke. “Holy shit. Where did you learn that?”

Cas smiled and picked up one of the empty pizza boxes. He raised an eyebrow.

Laughing, Dean grabbed Cas by the waist and hoisted him up onto the counter. 

“I thought I wasn't supposed to sleep up here anymore.”

“We're not gonna sleep.”

 

Dean awoke, shifted, and grunted. He sent out a hand and was surprised to find the bed next to him was empty as well as quite cold.

Raising himself up on one elbow, he scanned the room, and then crawled down to the foot of the bed. Cas was sitting on the floor just there, wound up in a blanket like some crazy crescent roll.

“Cas, the memory foam is going to forget you!”

Cas flicked off the flashlight he'd been using. “I'm sorry, Dean. Did I wake you?”

“No. But the point of sleeping with someone is that you wake up and there's this nice warm body there for you to grope.” He eyed the book in Cas's lap. “What are you doing, research?”

“Um,” said Cas. 

Dean sent an arm down and grabbed the book. “ _Lord of the Rings_? Oh, no way! You'd choose a bunch of elves and shit over me?”

“I wasn’t familiar with Tolkien’s oeuvre. I was reading and I got … a little caught up,” said Cas sheepishly.

“It’s not as good as the movie.”

Cas looked up at him, eyes wide. “There’s a movie?”

“We're gonna need to have a discussion about this,” said Dean, setting the book aside. He grabbed Cas under the armpits and hauled him back up into the bad, where he thereupon arranged him on his side and then, wrapping arms and legs around him, soon returned to sleep.

“Do humans really sleep like this?” asked Cas as Dean began softly snoring in his ear. He attempted to shift, but found himself hemmed in by Dean's many limbs. “I liked the library shelf,” he muttered.

 

 

“So you've dealt with sea witches before?”

“Well of course I have,” said Benny, grinning behind the wheel as salt spray licked his face. “Wouldn't be much of a pirate without a mermaid story or two.”

“You always have your stories, don't you?” muttered Cas, wrapping one of Dean's jackets more tightly around his shoulders.

“Going human ain't improved that one's disposition any, has it?” Benny asked Dean.

“Go suck blood.”

“Oh, that stings to my very core, Cas!” said Benny. “I guess I can consider myself lucky you don't have your smite-y fingers no more.”

“Wanna try me?” 

“You two!” warned Dean. “Do I have to turn this boat around?”

This got two glares. “Hey, I’m the one drivin’,” muttered Benny.

“Stop. Now.”

Cas and Benny exchanged a baleful glance.

“Now,” said Dean, “I know you guys are just jealous of me. But there's enough of me to go around!”

Cas and Benny exchanged another glance, this one very different in nature.

“You know, angel, we dumped the body out here, no one would ever find it, what with the tides.”

“I am carefully considering my options, vampire.”

“All right, enough. Benny, make yourself useful and tell us a mermaid story.”

“Make myself useful? After hauling your pasty asses all the way out here? Towards certain death?”

“Hey, we paid you a lot of blood.”

“And it was high quality AB positive, virtually free of pathogens. For that I thank you most sincerely, brother. Mermaids. Well, I tell you, there's one thing those gals love-”

“Herring,” deadpanned Cas.

Benny threw his head back and laughed. “No, but try again.”

Cas shrugged. Dean shook his head and said, “I don't know. Some douche-y looking Prince Charming? What?”

“They like guessing games. So be prepared.”

Cas was standing at the bow, looking out. “What was that?”

“That's too damn vague, Cas,” said Benny.

“You sense something?” asked Dean, hurrying over to stand by Cas.

“I thought he was fresh out of mojo,” said Benny. “Cas, you sure you ain't just seasick? Make sure to hang it over the side, I just swabbed the deck!”

But then the craft suddenly slammed to a halt. Benny was thrown across the wheel, and Cas would have pitched over the side if Dean hadn't tackled him.

“Benny, what the hell?” asked Dean.

“I don't know!” said Benny, scrambling up to take a look. “Did we hit something?” But he never got to check, because, accompanied by a loud slapping sound, there was now a new presence on the deck. She looked, for the most part, like a mermaid, having the form of a beautiful human woman down to about mid-pelvis, where her flesh turned to iridescent scales and her body molded into a great muscular fish tail. 

She also sported a magnificent pair of broad, scaly dragon wings, which now flapped threateningly at the three men.

“Ma'am,” said Benny, politely doffing his cap.

“Chaos sent you. Didn't he?” Her teeth were pointed, like a vampire's, only longer and more slender, like many pointy needles. 

“Uh, yeah,” said Dean. “He wanted us to apologize.”

“Do you know what he's done?” The tail switched. Kind of like a fish, but kind of like a cat. Like some kind of … fish-cat.

Dean and Cas looked at each other, and shook their heads.

“He stole my tablets!” she roared, wings flapping, tail slapping. 

The tide kicked up, and the boat bucked.

“She's got tablets too?” asked Dean. 

“The Dup Shimati were supposed to have revealed what is, what was, and what is going to be,” Cas told him.

“Well, sounds like a big deal. So, how did Chaos steal them?”

“Oh,” said Tiamat, suddenly looking away. “I may have given them to him. But only for safe-keeping!”

“He betrayed your trust,” Benny tutted sympathetically. “I am sorry, ma'am.”

“Tiamat. You need to forgive Chaos,” said Cas.

“WHAT?” howled Tiamat. “Why would I do that?”

Dean cringed backwards at the caterwauling: Tiamat had a screech like a cat in heat. But Cas continued staring at her. “Because people make mistakes,” he said evenly. “If you love him, you need to forgive him.”

Tiamat huffed. “How do you know I love him?”

Cas tilted his head. “You divined that Chaos was the one who sent us out here. And yet you have come to see what we have to say.”

Tiamat glowered, red-eyed, at Cas, but did not contradict him.

“So, what can we do about it?” asked Dean. “This is kind of important. It's in regards to my brother's life.”

“Oh, did you come all the way out here for your brother?” said Tiamat, swirling around to face Dean. “Well, aren't you the sweet one? Why don't we play a game? There are three of you, so I'll give you three questions. If I fail to answer even one, then you win. But if I answer them all, I win.”

Benny shot Dean an “I told you so,” glance.

“May I inquire as to the stakes?” asked Cas.

“If you win, I will forgive that lout, Chaos, even if he doesn't deserve it.” Tiamat paused, switching her fish tail.

“Uh, and if we lose?” ventured Dean.

“Oh, the usual.”

“The usual?” asked Dean.

“A terrible drowning death crushed by the pressures of ten thousand fathoms at the bottom of the sea,” said Tiamat, studying her long fingernails.

Dean looked at Benny, who shrugged. “Yep. These little gals play for keeps,” he said.

“What is the first question?” asked Tiamat, looming over Dean, her wings spread wide.


	7. Can't You Hear Me Knocking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys tangle with an angry mermaid and dish up Italian sausage.

**Title:** Can't You Hear Me Knocking (Part 7 of You Got the Silver)  
 **Fandom:** Supernatural  
 **Author:** tikific  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Dean, Fallen!Cas, Benny, Sam  
 **Warnings:** Cursing. No beta.  
 **Word Count:** 2,000  
 **Summary:** The boys tangle with an angry mermaid and dish up Italian sausage.  
 **Notes:** This is the end of this story, though I might have another story, set in this universe, later.

 

Dean stared up at the angry sea witch, Tiamat, who had begun flapping her wings impatiently. “What is the first question, human?” she demanded, he voice an angry purr.

“Uhhh. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” was the only thing that came to mind.

Tiamat licked her lips with a forked tongue. “African or European swallow?”

“European?” said Dean.

Tiamat flapped her wings, hovering up over the deck. “Eleven meters per second. Next question?”

“Shit,” muttered Dean, who hadn’t expected a mermaid to be a fan of British comedy, much less an ornithologist.

Benny winked at Dean. “Here's one of my old favorites. Why is a raven like a writing desk?” But Cas shook his head at Benny.

Tiamat rolled her eyes. “Because there is a B in both and an N in neither.”

“Uh. Oh,” said Benny. “Yeah.”

“Wait, was that an answer?” asked Dean.

“Next question!” rasped Tiamat. “This is your last one.” Her wings were wide and terrible, and her teeth were pointed.

Cas pointed to Dean. “Tiamat. Answer truly. What does Dean have in his pocket?”

Tiamat seized Dean by the arm. “Empty your pockets!”

“What?” asked Benny. “Wait, that ain't the way it's played!” To his surprise, Cas held him back.

Dean sent a hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out a key. It was the one Janus had given him.

All three men cowered and covered their ears as Tiamat emitted an ear-piercing scream. She flapped her wings and, quick as a flash, flew away.

“What the hell?” asked Dean. 

“I thought so,” said Cas.

“You thought what exactly?” asked Dean just as the boat was nearly swamped by a large, angry wave.

“She's causing a storm. They do that when they're pissed,” Benny explained.

“Can you get us the fuck out of here?” asked Dean.

“I'll try, brother.”

“I don't know what the key is, Dean,” said Cas. “But I suspected Janus was giving it to us not so much to help us as to get rid of it.”

“I'm keeping a cursed key? Oh hey, great to know.”

“It proved helpful.”

“Yeah, if we don't die. Benny, step on it! Or whatever the fuck you do in a boat!”

Benny, who had been frantically trying to get the boat turned about, now hit the throttle. The engine roared, and the ship accelerated for a few moments. But then it once again lurched to a halt as they all three saw what was looming ahead of them.

It was Tiamat. Only there was now no possible way she would have fit on the deck of Benny's boat, as she was now many stories tall, and not looking like she was in a good mood.

Cas fell down to the deck, scrunched his eyes closed, and put his hands on his temples.

“I don't think prayer is gonna do a whole hell of a lot now, Cas!” Dean told him.

“You got any other suggestions, Dean? Because I think we’d like to hear them now,” asked Benny as Tiamat opened her cavernous, pointy-toothed maw to strike.

_“Baby!”_

Tiamat spun around, causing another wave to jostle the little boat. Benny and Dean were both thrown to the deck. Dean scrambled to his feet to view an extra-large version of the pizza-loving Chaos, dressed in a very large tailored suit, and holding an equally tremendous bouquet of flowers as well as a gargantuan heart-shaped box of candy.

“What are you doing here?” Tiamat asked him, flipping her tangled hair in agitation. “I told you never to call me again.”

“Tia, baby! You're my lady! How can we let a little tablet get between us?”

“Where the hell did he come from?” whispered Dean.

“I called to him,” said Cas, rubbing his head.

“No shit?”

“I thought if I can still hear police calls, perhaps I could also send out communications?”

“Nice one, Cas,” said Benny.

“Can I have an aspirin, Dean?” asked Cas, cradling his forehead.

“You can have the whole fucking bottle. In fact, when we get back, if we get back, we'll stop on the way and hold up a pharmacy.”

“Can I be in on this?” asked Benny. “Can y'all rob a blood bank too?”

“Yeah, a pharmacy and a blood bank, and we'll also jaywalk and keep library books out past the date.”

Benny's grin showed pointed teeth. “You're one badass mother, Dean.”

“Oh, wait,” said Dean, who suddenly looked up at Chaos and Tiamat as the waves broke and the boat once again tipped dangerously. “Uh, what are they doing?”

“I think it's pretty damned clear what they're doing,” chuckled Benny.

Dean, Cas and Benny watched in silence for a long moment while Chaos and Tiamat rather spectacularly reconciled.

“So that's how you do it,” muttered Dean. “With the tail, I mean.”

“I had always wondered,” said Benny.

“Benny,” said Cas. “Do you suppose, while they are distracted...?”

“Oh, yeah, right!” said Dean.

Benny ran to the wheel and hit the throttle once again.

 

“Thanks for the lift, Benny,” said Dean as he and Cas scrambled out of Benny’s rattletrap of a truck in front of the Men of Letters headquarters

“No problem, brother,” laughed Benny. Leaving the engine on, he pulled the creaking parking brake and hopped out as well, leaning an elbow on the cab. “That was fun! Though it’s probably the last time I’m tangling with a mermaid for the foreseeable future.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” said Dean.

“And…. I'm awful sorry about Sam. I know you were trying to trade in favors.”

Dean crossed his arms and gave a quick nod. “We’ll find a way.”

“I am sorry I could not be more help,” Cas told Dean. “I have so few of my powers....”

“Hey, you did okay,” said Dean.

“Cas. Brother. Like my daddy always said, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Cas tilted his head and frowned at Benny, struggling to divine the equine insult that was inevitably embedded in his statement.

Benny leaned on the cab. “What I’d give to be human. Again. What I’m saying is, don’t knock it.”

Cas nodded.

“We’d invite you in…” said Dean awkwardly.

“You’re probably heavily warded against blood-sucking fiends. Like me. That’s all right. I don’t take no insult.”

Dean looked at the ground. “It’s warded against everything but pizza-loving Greek gods. We could….“

“We should make a vague promise to see Benny on some subsequent date, for an occasion that did not involve consumption of food, and did not take place in the bunker!” Cas ventured.

“Yeah. That!”

Benny laughed. “You two keep your noses clean, hear?” And then he jumped back into the truck and was off with a honk and a wave.

“Do you smell that?” asked Dean as he and Cas opened the door.

“Is that … Italian sausage?” said Cas, sniffing the air. His smile was pure bliss.

The source of the piquant aroma was soon apparent: stacked up on the dining room table were at least a dozen still-steaming pizza boxes.

“Well, I guess at least we know who this is from,” said Dean.

Cas picked up the note taped to one of the boxes and began to read aloud. _“Thanks for your help with my lady. Here is something back for you. Rock on. Yours, Chaos. P.S. Dudes, that is the key to Pandora's box. Be careful with that shit. -K.”_

Dean pulled the key out of his jeans pocket and held it up. “Pandora's box? No shit?”

Cas nodded. “If there's a key, there's got to be a lock,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

Dean pulled a face and tossed the key into a ceramic Hamm’s Beer ashtray full of keys on the counter, and opened the top pizza box. “Later for you, Pandora. So what do you want on your pizza? Pepperoni, or _evil_?”

“Where is the Italian sausage?” asked Cas hopefully.

The front door clicked. Dean and Cas looked up, pizza forgotten, weapons drawn.

“Uh. Anybody home?” said a very weary voice.

“Oh my god,” said Dean, dropping his gun and running for the door.

 

 

“Sam.”

“Sam?”

“Sammy!”

“What?” grunted Sam. He was riding in the Impala's back seat, devoting his full attention to the contents of the canvas bag opened on the seat beside him.

“Look, Sammy, it's just, we're worried about you.”

Sam regarded the clip in his Taurus 99. Dean was looking up in the rear view mirror, while Cas had half turned around in the passenger seat to regard him. “Mom. Dad. I was trapped in Heaven. With Cas's brothers and sisters. For almost a year. _I want to shoot things_.”

“I can see that,” said Cas, shrugging at Dean.

“Sammy. That's fine, it's just-”

“And why is the _angel_ riding shotgun?”

Dean and Cas shared a look. “Oh, uh,” said Dean. “I guess we just got used to doing things this way.”

“I could drive,” offered Cas with a slight smile.

Sam was hanging on the back of the front bench seat. “You let Cas drive the car?”

“What? No. Of course not.”

“Why not?” Cas asked Dean.

“Cas! Come on. We're doing an intervention here. Let's keep a united front!”

Castiel nodded and turned around to face Sam. “Sam. Your brother is concerned that you are pushing yourself too hard.”

“Wait!” said Dean. “ _I'm_ worried? We're both worried. Aren't we?”

“I was attempting to restate and validate your feelings on this matter so Sam could hear and understand them.”

“Feelings?” asked Sam. “Dean, you don't have feelings. What the fuck went on while I was away?”

“The fact that we're discussing this so openly causes me to feel encouraged,” said Cas.

“Cas: no more napping in the Men of Letters self-help section. Sam: it's okay that you were annoyed by the angels, but you need to eat and sleep as well as the gun range. And, I dunno, maybe find a girl?”

“Is that what you did, Dean?” asked Sam, leaning back.

Cas and Dean exchanged a glance. A rather uncomfortably long glance, as far as Sam was concerned. “Dean! Could you look at the road already?”

“Ow!” said Cas, who pitched forward, head in his hands.

“Hey Cas! Are you okay?” asked Sam.

“Police radio,” said Dean.

“What? He can still hear that?”

“It’s just waves. What's the word, Cas?” asked Dean. 

“I need several bottles of aspirin. And maybe some absinth,” Cas told him, cradling his head.

“You can have two aspirin and an orgy.”

“All right.”

“As long as I'm the only one invited to the orgy.”

“What did the police radio say, Cas?” asked Sam impatiently.

“There was a chemical spill of unknown origin. The morgue has a number of dead bodies. _Had_ a number of dead bodies.”

Dean actually turned all the way around to look at Sam. “Holy fuck zombies?” he asked Cas.

Cas nodded.

“Turn. The. Fucking. Car. Around. NOW!” ordered Sam.

He didn't have to ask twice.

 

“Twenty-seven.”

“Oh, you did not.”

“Did so,” said Cas, elbows on the table, chin in hands, smug look on his face. “How many did you get, Sam? What's that? I didn't hear you.”

“Twenty-two.” Sam pouted as Cas smiled smugly. “And when did you get so good with a gun?”

“Practice. Makes perfect.”

“What time does the gun range open?”

“Soup’s on!” Dean had just appeared in the dining room holding a steaming casserole dish with two oversized oven mitts. He set it down in the middle of the table.

“Is this hot chick lasagna?” inquired Cas.

“Huh, looks like brain spatter,” laughed Sam, who was poking at a sausage with a large serving spoon.

“No zombie talk during dinner,” huffed Dean.

“Yes, Mooooom,” grumbled Sam.

“Wait,” said Dean. “You can't call me that.”

“You've never objected before,” said Sam, dipping the spoon into the dish.

Dean slapped at Sam's hand. “I thought when you were calling us Mom and Dad, you were calling _him_ Mom,” he explained, pointing at Cas.

“Dean,” said Sam, shaking his hurt hand. “Cas just nailed twenty-seven head shots. And … look at you!” 

Dean gazed down at the rather loud floral apron he happened to be wearing. He frowned and tore it off, and sat down next to Sam.

“Eat your hot chick lasagna.”

“I like Italian sausages,” said Cas, holding up his plate.

“And you … don’t start!”

“What?” asked Cas curiously as Sam howled with laughter.

And so the boys ate. And bickered.

And meanwhile, across the room, a key sitting neglected in a Hamm’s beer ashtray began to softly glow.


End file.
